Broken Note, famed producers of brutal dance beats, have released their debut EP on an unsuspecting world. Toxin caught up with one half of the team, Tommy...

NB: Interview conducted early 2010.
Words: Will Jobbins
Pics: Supplied
- Broken Note enjoy a solid reputation for producing some of the hardest dubstep, breakcore and drum n' bass around. How did this brutal signature sound come about?

It wasn't really that intentional to be honest. I grew up listening to a lot of punk and metal which is part of the reason I have a large place in my heart for aggressive music. I was exposed to the underground techno / hardcore / free party scene from quite a young age in London and I've been into hardcore and techno for quite a while. The first time I heard breakcore and heavy drum n bass I was like - 'this is the new punk!'Industrial grade hardcore was the first form of electronic music I was making back in the day, but I felt there was a lot of ideas that could be drawn from it and combined with other styles to make something a little different.


- How did you get together and start out? Tell us about your pre-Broken Note musical life and any training, and how this assists both your production and live performances.

I used to play in a few bands, doing various things - mainly punk/metal/dub type outfits when I was younger. I used to produce what we came up with jamming with the bands, which later evolved into doing more electronic-based stuff. Eddie used to produce hip hop and is classically trained in piano.

We were introduced to each other through a mutual friend, when we met we sat down and quite literally pasted two different tracks we had both done together. It sounded SIC! From there on out we continued to produce music together.

- Who are your main influences or peers? Who have you enjoyed working alongside? Who would you like to work/perform with in the future?

We both have a lot of different influences; between us we cover a pretty large spectrum of music that we draw influence from. Tokyo Dub was a track we really enjoyed remixing; Ben (Juno Reactor) guided and influenced me in my early days, so on a personal level, it felt like we were giving something back. Beside that, we have worked with so many talented musicians - there are too many to mention.


- Do you see the dance music/club culture shifting towards a harder, more aggressive sound generally? IE the rise of dubstep, darker dnb, breakcore, hard breaks etc and the wane of more euphoric sounds ie trance. If so, why do you think this is?

I'm really not sure, could go either way, if its good music its good music. In the past with most subgenres in the electronic world [no pun intended! haha] it seems to have gone darker and harder over time - but that is open to speculation. We just try to do the music we enjoy listening to.

- What equipment and programs do you use for production?

It really varies from tune to tune. I find myself trying to use new bits of software and equipment each time to try and keep the creative process as fresh possible. Some of my favourite bits are Virus, Audio Damage stuff and the Massive synth. I've got a few bits of outboard but we use all software really. We've been producing all our stuff in Ableton Live for about four years now - I fell in love with it the first day I started using Live 5 - the simplicity of doing edits and automation is dream compared to using something like Pro Tools or Logic. But that's just my preference. I like to draw more of a live feel when and where I can, by recording live guitars, drums, vocals and organic sounds, and then processing them with effects. 



- Tell us about your biggest/best gigs?

There have been a lot of really fun shows over the years. Glade Festival 2009 was a banger - always nice to play to your home crowd! Machinenfest in Germany was really fun, with plenty of people feeling the metal vibes, and Breakcore Gives Me Wood in Belgium a few years ago was a wicked one, to mention a few. Never seen so many kids going mental to breakcore at once! There were some other crazy ones, like this wedding afterparty we played at in Spain for the Hybrid crew. It was at this ancient castle that was up in the mountains, about an hour outside Barcelona. We played to an epic view over the rest of the valley including the sea - nonetheless, it was an amazingly messy party!

- And your worst?

There was a weekend a few years ago where we had two shows in Europe, one after the other. I think it was France and Belgium or something, but as a result of slacking promoters we seemed to miss every flight and train we were supposed to get. It was terrible! The parties were wicked though...

- What can a person coming to see Broken Note perform for the first time expect?

I can't really tell people what to expect, but it ain't Blue Peter! Really though, everyone draws something different from our gigs (and music), people hear different things. I suppose a person can expect an amalgamation of everything from dubstep to tekno to drum n' bass to glitch hop to hardcore, and everything else in between. If it sounds good to us, we play it!

- Your debut full-player, Terminal Static, is out now on Ad Noiseam Records. Tell us about the process of conceptualising this album and putting it together.

To be honest it didn't really come together as we had originally planned. It was originally going to be a two disc album with most of the singles from the past year and a half - plus nearly a whole CD's worth of new material. A lot of the tunes and projects didn't meet the deadline set by Ad Noiseam so we had to downsize the whole release. The intention was to have the album as a flowing piece rather than a compilation of single tracks. The artwork was done Kromatech which was something Amon Tobin hooked us up with. All in all, I am really happy with the end result.

- Which secret weapon tracks do you keep at the front of your record bags to really blow a crowd away?

Well if told ya, it wouldn't be a secret, would it?!

- What are the plans for Broken Note in 2010 and beyond?

Expand, grow and learn in everyway possible. We've got quite a bit of collaboration work going on at the moment - a split EP with MachineCode [Dean Rodell & Current Value], couple of other tunes with SPL, DJ Producer, Cooh and Reso. Got a new 12" coming out in Jan 2010 on the Dutch label - Prospct, which is gonna be Channel Zero and the Cooh remix of Pyrotek.

                                                      Terminal Static is out now on Ad Noiseam Records (www.adnoiseam.net) and Broken Note's Myspace page at www.myspace.com/brokennoteuk features full gig listings and all the further information you could possibly require.